"Alright, listen to this."

Dave pressed the spacebar on his laptop and a sick beat started to play, echoing in the cafeteria. Karkat sat next to him, unimpressed. "Can you please stop making music and focus on our project?!" Dave held up his hand. "Wait wait wait, this is the best part."

The beat dropped. "Once I'm done with the words, this will be the hottest song on the charts."

Karkat yanked the laptop away from Dave and opened their presentation. The slide was titled "The Biology of Crocodiles". Karkat turned to Dave. "The biology of any animal in the universe and you chose crocodiles?"

"Karkat, bro, crocodiles are rad. Check the whole presentation, I spent all night on that thing."

Karkat went to the next slide. It was filled with crude drawings of crocodiles, which he could only barely make out through all the jpeg artifacts. Written in Comic Sans was the description that said "crocodiles are fuckin sweet".

Karkat looked up at Dave, who had no expression on his face. "Keep going," he said.

Karkat furiously skimmed over every slide, which seemed to get more shitty as it went on.

Karkat slammed the screen down. "THIS ISN'T YOUR SHITTY COMIC!" Dave continued sipping his apple juice nonchalantly. Karkat slapped it out of his hands and into another student.

"What the fuck dude? That apple juice was too good to waste on Equius' sweaty face."

Karkat shook a pointed finger at him. "Mrs. Pyrope's going to look at our progress this afternoon, so FIX IT BEFORE THEN."

Dave put his hands up. "Fine, fine. Jegus, dude."

Karkat turned away steaming, leaving his tray on the table. Dave looked around warily then stole his apple juice.

Dave heard a clacking sound behind him. He'd know that clack anywhere. "Sup Terezi."

Terezi was holding her lunch tray and clacking her walking stick against the table. "What happened this time?"

"I fucked up our project. Made it all SBAHJ-y."

Terezi sat down and grinned. "Aww, I wish I was here to see that! Hear that. Whatever." Her tray was filled with brightly-colored food, with bright red apples and neon green Jello. "You are going to fix it before my mom sees, right?"

Dave opened his laptop and clicked on a different presentation. It had the same title but in Times New Roman font with appropriate visuals and text. "Nah, it was just a dumbass prank, with inspiration from John. It was worth it."

Terezi gasped. "But you never listen to John's prank ideas!"

Dave put up a declarative finger. "Inspiration is the key word here. Besides, it was to piss off Karkat."

"Ha! That's easy to do," Terezi said.

Dave stopped sipping the juice and grimaced at it. "Dammit, why did I have to mention piss?" He chucked it at the garbage can. It landed in Tavros' tray.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"I chucked it at the can."

"Nice throw!" Terezi grinned. "Wait, it did land, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then nice throw!"

"Thanks."

They sat in silence as they they ate. Then Terezi waved her hand. "Hey Karkat!"

Karkat was jogging back to their table. "I met John in the hallway. That was a REAL FUNNY PRANK, Strider."

Dave smiled cockily. "I know, right?"

Karkat rolled his eyes and sat back down. "Hey, where's my apple juice?" Terezi pointed at the lunch lady. "In the trash bin." Dave pointed at his stomach. "And in here too."

"Strider, I swear...at least I still have the rest of my lunch." He picked up his sandwich.

"Wait, what was John doing in the hallway at lunch?" Dave asked.

Karkat put his sandwich down. "I thought he was going to load someone's locker with water balloons or something, but instead he was showing some people around."

Terezi leaned forward, interested. "Really? Who?" Dave nodded. "Yeah, who the hell arrives in the middle of the day?"

"They were a boy and girl. Cousins, I think. Apparently they used to live on a private island in the Pacific, which I think is bullshit, and they wanted to try going to an actual school, and not just take online ones all the time."

"What were they like?" Terezi asked.

"The boy talked like an old man and winked at Vriska, and the girl was acting like the school was some sort of space station."

Dave whistled. "They won't last a week."

"They won't."

The bell rang. Karkat looked down at his uneaten lunch. Then he stuffed the whole sandwich in his mouth and chewed rapidly. He swallowed with difficulty and gasped. "Let's go."

"C'mon, Dave!" Terezi yelled. "Mom's gonna be so pissed if you're late! Then she's gonna be mad at me for being your friend! So speed up!"

Dave tried his best as everyone else was also running to their class.

Kankri was on the side of the hallway blowing his whistle. He was wearing a "Hall Monitor" sash. "Running isn't allowed in the halls! You might trigger people with disabilities! Wait, Tavros, don't wheel so fast! You might trigger people who were in car accidents!" He blew his whistle until his face burned red.

Dave was so entranced by the rush and stupidity that he crashed into someone.

That someone was a girl who he had never seen before. This must be the girl Karkat was talking about, Dave thought.

She immediately stood up and tried to help Dave up. "I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" Her brows were knitted in a frown.

He stood up and said, "I'm fine."

She made sure that all of her books were in her hands, then she sighed in relief. "Sorry. I'm new here, so I didn't know everything would be so crazy when the bell rang."

Dave shrugged. "It's crazy all the time here."

The girl giggled. "What's with the shades? Are you some kind of coolkid?"

Dave did a coolguy pose. "As a matter of fact, I am. I'm the coolest kid around. So cool that when I drop a song, everyone stops what they're doing just to get it on their phones. I'm so rad, when I enter restaurants, people whisper to each other 'Oh my god, it's him. It's Dave Strider.'"

Then unexpectedly, her eyes sparkled in awe. "Do they?"

Okay. He wasn't expecting her to take it seriously. He looked around. No one was paying attention.

"They do."

She gasped. "Woooow. Soooo coool."

"I know."

"Dave! Move your ass before mom roasts mine!"

Dave yelled back, "Wait up!" and turned back to the girl. She said apologetically, "Sorry for holding you up! You should get to class."

"Yeah."

He started to run, but he looked back.

"Hang on, what's your name?"

She smiled. "Jade Harley."

A whistle blew. Kankri was pointing at them. "Stop bonding! You're going to trigger people with social anxiety!"

Dave gave her double pistols and a wink, then rushed over to the Biology room.